AUBREY'S 'BRIEF LIVES' _ANDREW CLARK_ VOL. I. HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD [Illustration] LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK [Illustration: JOHN AUBREY: AETAT. 40 _From a pen-and-ink drawing in the Bodleian_] _'Brief Lives,' chiefly of Contemporaries, set down by John Aubrey, between the Years 1669 & 1696_ EDITED FROM THE AUTHOR'S MSS. BY ANDREW CLARK M.A., LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD; M.A. AND LL.D., ST. ANDREWS _WITH FACSIMILES_ VOLUME I. (A-H) Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1898 [Illustration: Oxford] PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, M.A. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY PREFACE The rules laid down for this edition have been fully stated in the Introduction. It need only be said here that these have been scrupulously followed. I may take this opportunity of saying that the text gives Aubrey's quotations, English and Latin alike, in the form in which they are found in his MSS. They are plainly cited from memory, not from book: they frequently do not scan, and at times do not even construe. A few are incorrect cementings of odd half lines. The necessary excisions have not been numerous. They suggest two reflections. The turbulence attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh seems to have made his name in the next age the centre of aggregation of quite a number of coarse stories. In the same way, Aubrey is generally nasty when he mentions the noble house of Herbert, earl of Pembroke, and the allied family of Sydney. There may be personal pique in this, for Aubrey thinks he had a narrow escape from assassination by a Herbert (i. 48); perhaps also there may be the after-glow of a Wiltshire 'feud' (i. 316). The Index gives all references to persons mentioned in the text, except to a few found only in pedigrees, or otherwise quite insignificant; also to all places of which anything distinctive is said. ANDREW CLARK. _January 4, 1898._ CONTENTS VOLUME I FRONTISPIECE: JOHN AUBREY, AETAT. 40. PAGE SYNOPSIS OF THE LIVES ix-xv INTRODUCTION 1-23 LIVES:--=Abbot= TO =Hyde= 24-427 VOLUME II FRONTISPIECE: AUBREY'S BOOK-PLATE.